1. Technical Field
The disclosure generally relates to the field of electronic books, and more specifically to the protection of electronic book content from unauthorized copying.
2. Background Information
Electronic book readers implemented either as use-specific devices, or as software on personal computers, tablet computers and smartphones have become extremely popular. As more and more books are being sold in electronic form, a concern has arisen regarding how best to protect those books from unauthorized copying.
One known technique for presenting an electronic book is via a web browser using hypertext markup language (HTML). An advantage of such a system is that most modern computers are already equipped with hardware and software to process HTML content, such as web browsers (e.g., the Chrome™ browser provided by Google Inc.). HTML is a flexible and easy-to-use language, so numerous electronic book features can be implemented with existing HTML tools.
One downside of using HTML, however, is that there are also many known technologies that could readily be applied to circumvent technological measures to protect an electronic book from piracy.
For example, even though an electronic book reader application might require a password for access to a library of books, once such authorization has been applied a user may nonetheless be able to copy portions of the book for unauthorized further use or resale. Specifically, a number of application programs variously known as “screen scrapers,” “content scrapers,” “data scrapers” or “web scrapers” (referred to generically as “scrapers” herein) capture HTML pages automatically and can readily be applied to copy and paste pages from an electronic book to quickly create an unauthorized copy of the book. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a mechanism for protecting HTML-based electronic book content from such unauthorized use.